Heavy on material from their acclaimed 13th album ‘Resistance Is Futile‘, the band performed a total of six new songs as they took to the stage at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle. With an impressive stage production and visuals made by band collaborator and award-winning director Kieran Evans, the band’s 23 song set also saw the live debut of ‘Everything Must Go’ era B-side ‘Horses Under Starlight’, along with the first live outing of rarity ‘4 Ever Delayed’ for the first time in over 10 years.

“We’ve always been practicing ‘Black Dog On My Shoulder’ and ‘Ready For Drowning’,” bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire told NME. “People get annoyed with the sets, but there’s just so much there. Also, a song like ‘Sleepflower’ [from ‘Gold Against The Soul’] is really hard to play and sing, but we might do that a couple of nights just for the people who keep calling out for it.”

They also added that they’d been preparing their cult classic b-side ‘Prologue To History’.

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“I’ve always loved that lyric,” frontman James Dean Bradfield told NME. “I remember feeling very scared when Nicky first gave me that lyric because I kind of knew that I couldn’t turn it into a single. That would have been a miracle. I knew that it had to be a track that would seem like a classic album track. Something that was as good as ‘IfWhiteAmerica…’ or ‘Send Away The Tigers’ or ‘No Surface All Feeling’.

“I kind of failed because it didn’t get enough votes to make the album, but it kind of became a very significant B-side. This is not revisionism of any type, it’s just about realising that it should have been on ‘This Is My Truth’.”

Manic Street Preachers setlist was:

International Blue
You Stole the Sun From My Heart
No Surface All Feeling
Distant Colours
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
4 Ever Delayed (First time since 2007)
Dylan & Caitlin
Motorcycle Emptiness
Slash ‘n’ Burn (First time since 2012)
Liverpool Revisited
Horses Under Starlight (Live debut)
Ocean Spray
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Faster (Acoustic)
Kevin Carter (Acoustic)
You Love Us
Walk Me to the Bridge
Hold Me Like a Heaven
Tsunami
Let Robeson Sing
People Give In
Show Me the Wonder
A Design for Life